Tuesday, May 12, 2015

I'm gonna take the unpopular stance on these two issues

First -- Jeb Bush

Last night during an interview on Megyn Kelly's eponymous show, she posed a "gotcha" question to the former Florida governor to the effect of whether, knowing what he/we know now, would he have gone to war in Iraq.

Jeb did exactly what we, as conservatives have been begging our candidates and politicians to do -- he didn't fall for the baited trap and instead turned the question to get out what was his position on the issue.

Paraphrasing, he stated that going on what the world's intelligence agencies knew at the time he would have done the same thing as his brother had done.

This has naturally touched off a firestorm of recriminations from both the left and the right, both of whom are conveniently forgetting what has gotten the mid-East into the mess it is in now. That is, the ill-advised withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. We should have kept a force there. We should have maintained an obvious presence there, and that is what pretty much every military leader interviewed has said.

I'm disappointed in Kelly, whom I generally like, for continuing to push this faulty narrative. Guests on her own show have brought out repeatedly that only the vacuum left by our premature withdrawal from the region has given rise to ISIS and a militant Iran, and not our decision to remove a genocidal dictator from the region.

She also tried to nail him on his support for Common Core. Now I'm with most folks who decry the indecent data mining and the bizarre teaching metrics associated with this. But Jeb's right about one thing -- we must reform our education system. And Jeb's got the track record here in Florida as Governor. He might need another path on this one, but his heart's in the right place.

Got to get him up to speed on the lie of man-made climate change tho.

All in all, sorry folks, I'm team Jeb on this one.

And in part two -- Kendall Jenner

Yes, the light-headed sibling of that bizarre clan made the world-ending mistake of wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd vintage tour t-shirt to the gym the other day and compounded that by tweeting a picture of herself.

You see, the t-shirt had a small Confederate Flag in one corner of it, as pretty much every t-shirt put out by southern rock bands did back in the 70s. Well, righteous outrage has ensued as the effete gays and pouty lesbians that run the celeb blogs have lept at Jenner's stupidity/ignorance/heartlessness at daring to wear that symbol on her clothes.

Give me a f*cking break! It's a f*cking t-shirt for crying out loud! Ever look around you and see how much Nazi imagery is used in pop culture? Ever see this:

Yeah, that's the Iron Cross. It's everywhere from heavy metal to bikers to surfers. It's an award used by Hitler during WW II. Ever hear of that? 5 million Jews murdered? Yeah, that Hitler. Nazi and communist imagery is everywhere from music to Madison Avenue. Where's the outrageous outrage about that?

You know what offends me? Seeing those old time pictures of the signs hanging in bars that said "No dogs or Irish allowed" or the neverending portrayal of Irishmen as drunks or some crazed fill in the blank. Last positive portrayal of an Irishman I saw in a movie was The 13th Warrior. The fact that we've forgotten that the reason most cops are/were Irish back in the day was those were the worst jobs available. No one wanted them, so the Irish took them. All those miners that got black lung and died in cave-ins during the industrialized steel industry were Irish. Because they were deemed expendable, less worthy of life than anyone else.

The Civil War was an ugly period in our history. The South fought for secession based in large part because they needed slaves to work the fields. It was an ignorant position, a regrettable one, made by people less evolved than we are now. No one is suggesting we return to those days. Blacks have made the Confederate Flag a symbol of discrimination. That's their right. But to Southerners, it is simply a sign of defiance, independence, of a willingness to stand and fight for what you believe in.

And in case you've missed. There's been an overt push to declare the American Flag a symbol of oppression and racism on college campuses and even in primary schools. Are you going there now? Let's see just how far you pantiwaist liberals are willing to push this meme.

As to the Confederate Flag -- yeah, I'm white, so maybe I don't see it your or other's way. But like I said, It's just a f*cking tour shirt! When you start railing against every other tour shirt with questionable imagery on, I'll take you seriously. But right now -- get a grip!